Red Bull Music Academy 2011 / Madrid – Photostory

As the ever vital Red Bull Music Academy is in full swing we present a photographic review of what went down in Madrid during the last few days, featuring Erykah Badu, Señor Coconut and MF Doom among many others.

At the moment, the 2011 Academy is being held in the unique surroundings of Matadero Madrid. Set in one of the most remarkable architectural sites of early 20th-century Madrid, the industrial complex is currently being transformed into the Spanish capital’s biggest centre for contemporary creation. The Red Bull Music Academy is laying the foundations for the music at Matadero. Through a collaboration with the City Council’s Department of the Arts, it is ensured that the Academy space will live on as a cultural hub – and that the music won’t stop in years to come. This extraordinary opportunity also allows for a new level of set-up and design at the studios built for the Academy 2011.

Erykah Badu's seminal works like ‘Baduizm’ and the ‘New AmErykah’ series have successively upped the ante in terms of what can be done within the soul spectrum, fusing cosmic b-girl bravado with the forward-thinking sounds of producers like the Soulquarians, Madlib, and more recently, Academy grad Flying Lotus, to create a sonically varied body of work – selling millions of albums in the process. Erykah also heads up her own record label, Control FreaQ, and has even been caught on the ones and twos recently, under the mysterious moniker DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown.

Frankie Knuckles is a DJ whose story is so interwoven into the fabric of modern clubland that music history can’t be told without him. Weaving a line through Chicago House, Philly soul, new wave, disco, and funk, Frankie’s work as a producer, selector and DJ has paved the way for a sonic template that dancers have come to understand the world over.

MF Doom, the man in the iron mask during his lecture in Madrid. Among other things he spoke about Expektoration, a live Doom album, which was released on September 14, 2010. In mid 2010, DOOM released the mix-tape "DOOM!", a collection of greatest hits, B-sides and rareties, including the theme for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars featuring Ghostface Killah, and Biochemical Equation, featuring the RZA. DOOM was chosen by Portishead to perform at the ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror festival that they will curate in July 2011 at London's Alexandra Palace.

Academy alumnus Paul Riser, an American trombonist and musical arranger for Motown Records who was responsible for co-writing and arranging dozens of top ten hit records. His legacy as one of the “Funk Brothers” is similar to that of most of the other "Brothers", as his career has been overlooked and overshadowed by the stars of Motown that became household names. Still it’s often the case that you can learn more from the men and women in the shadows than from those who bask in the limelight.

Emmanuel Kangwa 'Jagari' Chanda was a co-founder, lead singer and bandleader for the Zambian psychedelic rock band WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc) between 1972 and 1977. WITCH was the first ensemble to commercially release an album in this landlocked African nation; Emmanuel now now works as a gemstone miner in the bush of Zambia's north, one of the last of his kind.

Mark Pritchard – electronic music producer and DJ from Sydney, Australia. Born in Yeovil, United Kingdom, he has released music on the labels Warp Records, Hyperdub, Dedicated and Berlin based Sonar Kollektiv amongst others. Pritchard has produced a wide scope of genres with the acclaimed Global Communication album 76:14 of 1994 - which was included in The Guardian’s list of “1000 albums to hear before you die”. Global Communication also performed live in Madrid.

Jamie Woon, singer, songwriter and producer gained widespread acclaim in 2010 for his single Night Air which was co-produced by Burial, following his previous independent release, Wayfaring Stranger EP. Jamie’s debut album is entitled Mirrorwriting and was released in April this year.

Señor Coconut, the man of a thousand aliases, lectured and played a set at Red Bull Music Academy Madrid. Following “El Baile Alemán” (dedicated to the German Electro pioneers Kraftwerk), “Fiesta Songs” (a joyful collection of popular songs including “Smooth Operator”, “Beat It”, “Smoke on the Water”) and “Yellow Fever” (a tribute to his Japanese fellow musicians of the Yellow Magic Orchestra) he just released his newest baby “Around the World”, which the musical knight of the Order of the Coconut has worked on for almost a year in real and virtual studios.

With Japan's capital still readjusting after the country's troubles, on April 11 the Red Bull Music Academy will announce a new location for 2011 instead of Tokyo, while applications for this year's...